They are a minority group in Laos, who helped the CIA during the “secret war” of the 1960s in their efforts to topple the Communist Laos government. However, after the CIA left Laos, this group has come under persecution from the the Laos army.

Why are they refugees?

In the 1960s, the CIA trained and armed the Hmong people to combat Communist forces in Laos during the Vietnam War.

When the Communists took control of Laos, they set out to actively torture and kill Hmong people who had allied with the US during the war. In recent years, there have been attacks on the Hmong- some blame the Laos/Vietnam governments, others blame rogue army units operating in the area.

Although the 100,000 refugees have been resettled in the USA, almost 30,000 refugees remain in camps in Thailand, and even more are hiding in the jungles of Laos.

What has happened so far?

In 2005, the Thai government repatriated many of the Hmong refugees in their refugee camps back to Laos. Within months, many Hmong fled back to Thailand, claiming the Laotian military had attacked them.

In 2006, Filmmaker Rebecca Sommer filmed a documentary “Hunted Like Animals”, showing Hmong refugees being killed by Laotian troops. She submitted it to the UN for review, and as of July 2007, nothing has yet been done about this.

How can this problem be solved?

The problem has been one that has been present for many years, and there is little that aid or resttlement can do because the problem will keep recurring time and time again.

The solution perhaps lies in diplomacy/political pressure on the Laos government, to encourage it to exercise greater control over its army units in their dealings with the minority tribes to ensure human rights are observed. Only if the root problem is eradicated, then can the refugee situation be resolved.

Advertisements

Like this:

LikeLoading...

10 responses

oh man!!!! this is terrible. totally horrible. the way they are haunted, tortured, shoot, killed. man are the soldiers human? how can they be so heartless? and why? why are they killing people? even childrens!!!!! please government please do something about it. its too painful to see them suffering.

we cant help much unless the laos government realise tt they are actually depleting human on earth…they tot they can be on their own…so let them be…sooner or later they gonna kill their own family,raping their own mum,cutting of their own dad’s dick…now wat we can do, we lend a hand to the relief rangers like first aid financially and food ration financial….they noe wat to if we gv them money…seriouslly…

the soldiers were acting under orders. if there was anyone to blame, it would be their leaders. we need some kind of authority over these people… the least we could do is to spread the message so wide, so deeply that we can pressure those leaders into submission.

This is a horrible atrocity to think of the evil being perpetrated by these socialistit hethens. they need to have their penises cut from mother earth or relalize that mankind cannot exsist with such hateful intentions. their supreme leader must submit to the will of the Hmong and let them be free to love and live. Or me must overthow the LAOS government to ackowledge the will of all people including the Hmong. maybe we must bomb them into submission to facilitate their acceptance of their crimes of humanity. Everyone must know of their crimes.